Making stop-motion movies is easier than ever with basic technology and Windows Movie Maker.
The art of stop-motion animation is a surprisingly low-tech and inexpensive method of making short movies. With most current Windows software, the program Windows Movie Maker is already installed. Animation in this program works by the simple principle of bringing to life a series of still-frame photographs that portray a subject in action and playing each photo one after another for just fractions of a second in length. A stop-motion animation with paint would be comprised of a photo series taken of many separate paintings that depict a subject in action or motion when played in rapid succession.
Instructions
1. Paint the images of your subject in different positions for desired movement, each frame on a new page of the art pad. Remember consistency of spatial location of the subject on the page. The next frame should gradually differ from the last to preserve fluidity of the subject's motion, rather than showing jerky movements displacing the subject from its position in the previous frame.
2. Take photos of each page with your digital camera and save them on the hard drive of your computer.
3. Open the program Windows Movie Maker from the "start" menu by clicking "All Programs," locating the program in the list and clicking it once.
4. Import photos to a file in Movie Maker, go to "Edit" in the tool bar, and click "Select All." With the photos selected, drag them all at once on to the "timeline" provided by the program. Organize the timeline so that the animation plays the photos in the order you desire.
5. Adjust the playing time for each photo by clicking "Tools," then "Options," and setting the picture duration as low as it can go. The more rapid you play the succession of images, the more fluid the motion of your subject.
6. Test your animation by hitting the play button on the media player in Movie Maker. Save your file.
